


The Resident Spirit

by Fenris



Category: Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, Ghostfic, M/M, Post-Karnak
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-11-13
Updated: 2010-11-13
Packaged: 2017-10-13 04:45:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/133081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fenris/pseuds/Fenris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rorschach foregoes the afterlife and comes back to take care of unfinished business.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Resident Spirit

**Author's Note:**

> Work in progress. Written for a prompt on the [WM Kinkmeme 5](http://spam-monster.livejournal.com/4155.html) requesting that Rorschach come back as a ghost, and be actually happier that way.

The world turns red for an instant, then pure white, and it doesn't hurt. It doesn't hurt at all.

For a moment he holds an image of a blue man with empty eyes holding up one hand, his expression as blank as the Antarctic wasteland around him. For an instant, he sees a mottled spray of red and white spread across the snow in a vaguely familiar pattern, sees Daniel framed in a tall doorway, mouth opening to scream, face contorted in horror. He feels a last sharp pang of regret, then it is gone and everything is white again.

He stands up, a little shaky, and looks around. There is nothing to see or hear, no features, just an endless expanse of white. He's not even sure of what he's standing on. It feels solid, but there is no substance, and when he bends down to touch, his fingertips feel nothing.

All of the pain that he's been holding at bay for hours, some of it for days, is gone. The broken bones, torn muscles and ligaments, the deeper pains that told him of almost certain internal injuries, even his bad ankle…none of it hurt anymore.

"Suppose that's to be expected when you're dead," he thinks.

He reflects that he should really be more astonished that he's actually able to realize that he's no longer in pain, or to wonder about where he is, or that he's thinking at all.

It's been a long time since he entertained the notion that there might be something else after death. Y-years ago, he'd accepted the reality that there was nothing more to life than what you made of it here and now. Anything else was a fairy tale invented to either console people about the fact that they were going to cease to exist someday, or provide a way for people to rationalize their bad behavior. Once you died, that was the end of it.

Well, apparently not.

He waits for a while, expecting something to happen. When it doesn't, he shrugs and starts to walk. As he walks he realizes that he's still holding on to his mask (no, his face), and absently tucks it into his pocket, brings his other hand up to run it slowly over his face ( _Walter's face. That's right, my name is Walter. No, wait. Is that right? That's not right, not my real name. I need my real name. Something's wrong_ ).

Everything is becoming more dreamlike, and he can no longer feel his body without making an effort. He traces his fingers over his lips, cheekbones, eyelids, then runs them quickly through his hair, reassuring himself that he still has these things. He doesn't realize that he's not bothering to breathe anymore.

Gradually he sees that the flat empty plane does contain angles and surfaces, they're just hard to see because they're all the same color and there are no shadows. He realizes that he's walking down a long corridor, and if he uses his peripheral vision, there are doorways.

He stops at one doorway and stares into the blankness on the other side. After a while, shapes begin to form, rather like the images that burn themselves temporarily into your retinas when you look away after staring at an object for too long. At that point he becomes uneasy, and moves on down the corridor.

He stops at a number of doorways, and each time it's the same. Vague shapes that seem to want to come more into focus but never fully do, and if he listens hard he can sometimes hear faint voices. None of the shapes or voices ever seem familiar though, and he gets an uneasy feeling when he spends more than a few minutes in front of a door, each time moving on before the shapes or sounds can become too distinct, before they start feeling too much like a choice that can't be taken back.

Eventually he comes to a door that feels all right, and this time he waits for the shapes to coalesce. To his surprise, he finds himself looking into a dingy little playground area, a tiny rundown park that he remembers was located a block away from the tenement area in which he lived as a child.

It has the same worn swings, battered slide, splintering old seesaw that he remembers being there. And the ancient monkey bars are there too (fictitious falls from which had served as his mother's convenient excuse for several broken bones). The last few remnants of dark green paint are still peeling away from the dark iron bars underneath. But aside from the unfairly maligned monkey bars, he'd had some of his only real fun as a small child playing in this park, and it doesn't hurt to see that it still exists. In fact, it feels good.

There are some children playing in there, and as he looks them over he thinks that he recognizes a few of them, but can't think of their names.

His gaze lights on a very young girl with dark brown hair clipped up in barrettes. She's standing on one of the lower rungs of the monkey bars, holding a small teddy bear in one hand, and he knows that he has seen her before. As he searches his fading memories for her name, she turns and looks at him, shading her eyes to get a better look. Evidently she approves of what she sees, because she waves at him, gesturing for him to come over to her.

Walter ( _he knows that's still not right, but it's all he has right now_ ) waves uncertainly back at her, thinking that she should know better than to be beckoning to a strange man hanging around a playground. He should go over and tell her so, perhaps even find out where she lives and escort her safely home. Then he can continue on to wherever it is he's supposed to be going.

But as he starts to step into the playground he realizes to his horror that he's not wearing any clothes. His shirt, suspenders, pants and boots, his briefs, are all gone. Somewhere, somehow during his walk down the long corridor they have disappeared and he's about to step into a childrens' playground (complete with playing children) stark naked.

To his continuing horror, the girl doesn't seem to mind at all. She jumps down from the monkey bars, dust puffing up around her patent leather Mary Janes, and calls to him, still waving.

"Mister, come on. Hurry up!"

Mortified, Walter moves to cover himself with his hands, and finds to his great relief that he's again wearing clothes. It's a rough work outfit; blue chambray shirt, jeans, and work boots, clean but well-worn, the type of clothes he'd sometime imagined his father might wear as he tinkered with some mechanical thing in the garage before coming in for dinner, wiping his oily hands clean on a rag.

Walter relaxes, breathes a deep sigh of relief (the first breath he's consciously taken since he arrived here) and steps through the doorway to meet the girl.

"Hi, mister." She stops, looks up at him a little shyly, swinging her teddy bear back and forth.

He nods at her, unsure of what to say. His reply is gruff, but not harsh.

"Hello. Are you all right?" He's not sure why, but he knows this question is very important. She smiles at him.

"I'm all right. I'm not lost. I'm going home now. It's almost time for dinner."

And as she says it, he feels something deep inside him relax and smooth out, some thread in his vital fiber that's been snarled and frayed and broken for a very, very long time. She laughs at him, and some of the broken strands inside mend themselves a little more, and he almost, almost has her name. But it doesn't come to him, and instead he just smiles back at her.

She transfers the teddy bear to the belt of her dress, tucking it securely in, and holds out her hand to him.

"You can walk home with me if you want."

He does want, and moves to take her hand, smiling, his eyes softer than they have been for many years. As he does, though, he hears a faint voice somewhere behind him, coming from somewhere out in the white corridor. It's almost inaudible, but he hears it and it brings him up short, listening. It's a man, and he's shouting, no, _screaming_ something. He's screaming "No!"

 _Daniel._

His head snaps back. Suddenly tense, like a predator waiting for a telltale rustle in the grass to pinpoint its prey, he listens to the faint cry and he remembers.

 _Daniel._

Then, _Veidt!_

His lip curls into a snarl and he steps back toward the doorway, pulling his hand away before it touches the girl's tiny outstretched palm.

 _Veidt. Killed Blake, killed millions. Got away with it. Can't be allowed to happen._

Daniel. Gave in, morally blackmailed into silence, going along with it. Can't be allowed to happen.

He steps back, toward the open doorway and looks down at the girl with regret.

"I'm sorry. I can't go with you."

Her face falls and it hurts him deeply, but he keeps moving away.

"Don't go, please come with me. My mom is making chicken with potatoes for dinner, you'll really like it! Don't you want to come home with me?" She holds out her hand, and for a moment he stops, almost steps forward to take it. Then he shakes his head,

"I'm sorry. I can't come with you now. I have to go back, there are things I have to take care of. There are people that I have to take care of."

She shakes her head. There are tears standing in her eyes, but none fall.

"Walter, if you go back you'll get lost. I don't think you'll be able to find your way back here again."

He smiles again, but this time it isn't a soft expression. It's hard, and a little sad.

"My name isn't Walter. Not really. I'm sorry, I have to go." And he steps away from her, back through the doorway and into the corridor.

As he walks away, he turns once to look back through the open door. She no longer looks like a little girl; he's not sure how old she really is. A small, sad smile appears on the young woman's face for a moment, and she raises her hand in farewell. Then she turns her back to him and the doorway is closed.

He looks down and sees that he's now wearing purple pinstriped trousers, and there are suspenders curving up and over his white dress shirt. He snaps a suspender with a small rumbling noise of approval and starts walking, moving back the way he came.

 _Which one is the right doorway?_ There are so many, he can't remember how far he's walked, but he can still somehow hear the echo of Daniel's cry and it pulls him in the right direction.

He picks up his pace, and as he walks he remembers.

Behind him, he hears a distant voice and thinks maybe he's being followed. His stride picks up speed. He finds that he's now wearing a pinstriped suit jacket that matches his trousers, and raises his hands to look with approval at his spotless purple leather gloves.

Now he's sure that he hears someone or something coming up behind him, and he also sees a doorway up ahead that he's sure is the right one.

Breaking into a brisk jog, he slips a hand into the pocket of his trench coat and it comes out holding a bundle of fabric, black and white patterns shifting frenetically over its smooth surface.

Rorschach pulls on his face, and breaks into a run.

He runs as fast as he ever has in his life, reveling in the feel of his legs moving, his arms pistoning, heart pumping. He feels his body again, alive and vital. A fierce triumphant joy fills him as he reaches the right door, the voice behind him fading away, and without breaking his stride he leaps through the open doorway, a fierce grin on his face.


End file.
